Jannock
by notinacreepyway
Summary: Jannock; adj. - pleasant; outspoken; honest; generous. When Sherlock Holmes is seven, he finds a book. AU-ish? ONE-SHOT; COMPLETE.


**I just really like words.**

* * *

When Sherlock Holmes is seven - all thick curls, and full lips, and bright eyes - he finds a book.

Him and Mummy and Mycroft are out shopping, and Sherlock isn't supposed to wander away but there's too much - too much of everything; too many people and cars and talking and noises and he doesn't like it and it's bad and so he finds the quietest place he can.

It's a bookstore.

The tomes are heavy and old; the entire place feels like it's covered with a thick layer of dust from everything, and he just wanders, hands trailing over leather so worn that it almost feels like it's going to wither under his touch.

He settles in a corner, the whole world muffled, and picks up the book closest to him.

The pages are old and smell old and he presses his nose to it, breathing in old paper and ink and wonders vaguely who else has read this book; wonders where they came from and where they went. But then his eyes focus on a word, and he blinks.

**lethologica**:_ n. - inability to remember the right word_

The words seem to shout at him; calling them to him, and he presses his hand to the page and brings it away and looks at his palm and they're just words but - somehow, they help.

Mummy finds him twenty minutes later and drags him away, but the book is still in his arm and he isn't letting it go.

* * *

Sherlock is known for being strange. It's something he's used to, and he doesn't particularly mind it; after all, as Mycroft says (and Mycroft is the centre of Sherlock's world and goes to a grown up school and knows everything there is to know about everything): 'people are idiots,' and Sherlock agrees because he can see that his teacher doesn't like boys but likes girls and why is that ever a problem?

He doesn't _understand_ people. He can tell why something has happened, but he can't predict that action. He can't predict how people are going to act.

When Father hits him for the first time, he hides the mark and his tears in his book.

Sherlock is levisomnous (_adj. - watchful_).

* * *

"What's that?" someone asks, indulgent little smile on their face as though they are indulging a little boy. (Sherlock is eight and has decided that Mycroft is awful - he abandoned Sherlock just with Mummy, now due to the fact Father is out of the picture too.) They gesture towards the book clutched to his chest.

"It's my vade mecum," he snaps. "A noun - a favourite book carried everywhere."

They laugh, eyes crinkling at the corners, but their lips are downturned slightly. "May I have a look?" they try to grab it from his arms; thick, worn leather encasing words that are so desperately precious. "Has it got pictures in?"

"No," he snaps, "go away, get off me-" it doesn't work.

That night, when he gets home, book soaked through, it is no longer his vade mecum. It is his book, and he will keep it at home, where it is safe.

* * *

When he starts senior school, at eleven, the children are adephagous (_adj. - gluttonous_) and rapacious (_adj. - greedy_) and dislike him so heavily and so obviously that it hurts him and he's not sure why - he certainly doesn't like them back, and he has no intention of getting them to like him. But he keeps his head down in lessons, untidy scrawl writing words in the margins of his books - words like recherché (_adj. - refined; carefully done; curious; far-fetched; extravagant_) next to the Shakespeare analysis in his English book, and mactation (_n. - sacrificial murder_) on the piece of paper that accompanies the perfect dissection of a frog in year 10.

When he escapes that school - sixteen, with cheekbones that curve and thick, dark hair and blue eyes that look at the world and decide they don't like what they see, and has malism (_n. - the theory that the world is mostly bad_) embedded into his very bones thanks to the dark gazes of his peers, and he sneers at them, eyes flashing brightbrightbright and just hopes that he never meets any of them ever again.

* * *

The heroin is _fantastic_.

But it gives him malnoia (_n. - a vague feeling of mental discomfort_) constantly, but he just lies in places - the bath; his bed; the bottom of his cupboard, nestled in his clothes, escaping reality for a little while. The thoughts whizz around his head like bees, or crackles of thunder and lightning, and it's like the whole entire world has been wrapped into a neat and clean package just for him. He understands. And that, perhaps, is the most important thing of all.

He _understands_ (sort of) why people don't like him; with his looks and his height and the way he treats people. He understands why they are envious; why they hate him so.

He understands why he doesn't like himself so much, either.

* * *

He's clean. From everything.

It is incredibly banausic (_adj. - common, ordinary, and undistinguished; dull and insipid_, and he wonders why he uses these words anymore, because he's no longer seven years old and the world being a big and bad place, but because it's far easier to think in these sorts of words than short words.)

* * *

When John Watson walks into the room, there is not a moment's hesitation.

_Jannock._

The page where that word resides is well worn, fingers having trailed over it time and time again. Sherlock wants to be that word. If there is someone who can define that word, they must be a good person, and Sherlock aims to be that sort of person.

But John Watson is jannock. He's all of it. He shoots a man for Sherlock the first day they've known each other; he defends him at the yard; he reminds Sherlock when he's a dick or stupid or makes a mistake; he doesn't mind making tea.

Sherlock wants to be jannock; wants to be good and kind and caring and everything that is positive, but doesn't quite manage it. He never quite will.

* * *

"Why do you use such long words?" the question comes out of no-where, and John's gaze is earnest, watching him with interest.

"Long words?" Sherlock questions, fingers twisting the knob on the microscope. "What do you mean?"

"Words that you don't normally hear," John clarifies, although it doesn't really clarify things at all.

Sherlock looks up from his slide, meeting John's eyes. "What sort of words do you mean?"

"Words like - harageous," John sighs. "I found it scrawled on the papers next to my computer."

"It means bold," Sherlock explains, with a frown. "Rough, perhaps, but bold. It reminded me of you." His eyes return to the glass of the microscope.

He hears the clinking of china on wooden table; John has clearly just put down his mug of tea. "How does it remind you of me?"

"You're bold, correct?" he doesn't wait for a reply. "You're brave, and sometimes foolhardy, but you're bold and unafraid and unashamed." He zooms in a little, glad when the red blood cells bite into sharper focus.

Sherlock doesn't look up, but he hears John's footsteps and the chuckle as he walks away, and can't help the smile.

* * *

He wakes up the next morning to a post-it note under his phone. Paragraphia is the word written there, and Sherlock grins broadly, knowing this one almost straight away. Paragraphia: n. - writing of unintended words or letters. He laughs at it, face lighting up with happiness, and texts John in reply with 'nitid', and just grins, because it means shining and John is shining; a conductor of light, Sherlock had said, and if that wasn't true then everything was a lie.

They run around London that evening, chasing not a very good man, and John glares down Donovan until she lets Sherlock into Scotland Yard, and Sherlock laughs breathlessly and John just grins.

"I have keraunophobia."

"You do?" And somehow Sherlock's grin has grown wider, eyes looking amused. "I'll note that down for you."

They leave the Yard still giggling, and when Sherlock asks John about his fear of thunder and lightning, John explains how just loud noises in general scare him. After all, who really expects to come out the other side of a war exactly the same person as they were when they entered?

The hug is sudden, and desperate, and hints so much at things unsaid but Sherlock ignores them, and for the first time in forever, he feels like he's wanted.

* * *

Slowly, carefully, the words scrawled on the post-it notes change. One day, there, in bold script, is 'I hope you don't have iatromisia,' in John's achingly neat handwriting.

'Why would I ever dislike you, my dearest doctor? You are luciferous,' is all Sherlock bothers to reply, and John gives him a smile that tells him that what he has written is Good, and Sherlock smirks in response.

It's true; John is his conductor of light, so illuminating it almost hurts to look at him, with the jumpers and the sarcasm and he's not sure what this welling up in his throat is so he pushes it back down ruthlessly, and goes to find John and tell him there's been a murder.

* * *

They're running through London, and it's dark and the whole world has just been reduced to the thin fog rolling off Father Thames, and Sherlock is grinning and grinning, and all he can feel is John's hand in his own and the slap of his shoes on tarmac and his heartbeat, and it's barely a thought.

He swallows. "I think I love you."

They are probably the most normal words he will ever understand.

John's pace slows. Sherlock slows with him. He bites his lip; pauses; turns to face John. He's done something wrong. He can read it in the lines of John's face; the hard line that is his lips.

"You think you love me?" One eyebrow arches on John's forehead, and Sherlock's eyes are flicking up and down his frame, reading his body language and not particularly liking what he sees.

Sherlock nods. "I think I do," he confirms, chest starting to calm, watching John with a barely concealed tremor running through his voice. "And - and, I think maybe, that you love me too."

John watches him for a moment that seems to drag on far too long, and then, finally, he speaks. "It won't be easy."

"Easy is boring," Sherlock snorts dismissively.

"We'll still fight."

"When do we not?" Sherlock's heart is almost floating in his chest and he drags in a breath deep, deep, letting the smoke fill his lungs, and breathes it out, wondering if the carbon monoxide would poison him if he drinks it deep enough.

John smiles then, and it's tentative, and it's scary, and Sherlock knows that maybe he won't ever leave John Watson, ever, and he's never been tied down to someone like this - never in the way of emotions and feelings and knowing that it's mutual, but he can only feel habromania, and his everything is smiling.

(Habromania  
_n. - extreme euphoria)._

* * *

__The best thing that comes out of their relationship isn't the cuddling, although, admittedly, that is pretty great, and it isn't the sex, because that's pretty great too, but it is the fact that Sherlock can tell John he loves him in a million, billion ways and John only smiles and kisses him and shows him that he's worth something more than the words that define him.


End file.
